


The Namesake

by katajainen



Series: February Ficlet Challenge 2018 [20]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Family resemblance, Gossip, Multi, Name-calling (referenced only), No beta - provided as is, Past Relationship(s), Past Threesome, Remembrance, Sorrow, Tweaking one character's age ever so slightly, Unconventional Relationship, When one of your triad sails into the West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13774593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: When Frodo Baggins sailed into the West, he unknowingly left something for Sam and Rosie to look after.





	The Namesake

**Author's Note:**

> Day 22 of the February Ficlet Challenge, prompt: doppelgängers.
> 
> And this is me stretching the prompt and testing if it breaks.

Sam hadn’t given it much thought at first, that early morning in June when the lad had been born. After all, all newborns had blue eyes, and many had dark hair at birth that lightened into another colour later.

What mattered was that he was their firstborn son, and Sam and Rosie had named him Frodo, as they had long since meant to, a namesake to the one who had sailed, never to return. Later, Sam sometimes thought they had perhaps been too hasty. That maybe another name would have suited the lad better.

Or perhaps it would have made little difference, because the lad would have had the looks even without the name. For his eyes turned no browner and his hair no lighter as he grew, and that made him stand out among his siblings.

The kindest thing people would say was that it was uncanny. The unkindest things were much worse. There had been the time when Elanor, all of eight years of age, had come home in a torn dress but proud, and told she’d punched Carl Sandyman for calling her little brother ‘an ugly name,’ and she wouldn’t repeat it where he could hear.

Then Ted Sandyman had come complaining, and Sam would have none of it. Afterwards, Rosie cleaned his knuckles with cold water and soft cloth, and they would share a long, sad look, but no words.

Because what Sandyman’s son had said had only been the truth. Because it was not the fault of the child that his parents had loved outside of custom and convention, loved from the fullness of their hearts.

Be as it may, it had not been enough. There had been that one September night, the last of many such nights, when Elanor had slept in her cot and the three of them had bid goodbye, with hands that would hold but could not keep, with mouths that would kiss, would speak words that could never mend that which would not heal, with embraces that mingled joining with tears, with the thought of  _ never again. _

And as the years passed, Sam would look upon his son, the uncanny double of his namesake, and catch something, a tilt to his head, a quirk of expression, the sound of his laughter, that would make his heart clench with memory and regret.

One day after tea he found Rosie in the kitchen, the dishes forgotten, her hands idle in the sudsy water. Behind the open window, young Frodo was singing as he worked in the garden, of a road that went on and on. Tears were streaming silently down Rosie’s face.

‘ _... And whither then? I cannot say _ ,’ Sam whispered and wrapped his arms around her. For a long while they stood there, leaning on each other and missing the one who had gone and left them with more than a memory.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I just thought, what if Sam and Rosie's son Frodo had been born in the summer of 1422 instead of 1423, and what if he'd been not only the namesake of Frodo Baggins, but his biological son. Because I live for this triad. (And I have now made myself sad, but that's irrelevant.)


End file.
